Saturday, January 17, 2009

Sigh - more leaky batteries

I knew in my gut that the front batteries were probably leaking like the rear ones were. Last weekend, I finally got around to removing the front battery box so I could see how bad it was. Pretty bad:

The front box is a pain to remove because of all the relays, batteries, DC-DC converter, etc. that are attached to it. You can see all the little green masking tape labels I put on all the wires to make sure I got things put back together correctly.

Here is the front compartment after attacking it with a wire wheel on my angle grinder:

It was warm enough that day to put a couple of coats of spray paint on it, so I did:

I went to Sam's Club and got 4 12-pound bags of baking soda. I put about 6 pounds below the front rack (looks like snow!):

I put about 1/4" or so inside the front battery box:

For good measure, I put some below the middle battery box (not shown) and inside the middle battery box (that's the ElectroJeep in the background - sealed batteries, no acid leaks there...):

Hopefully the baking soda will neutralize the acid spills as they happen. But this is something I will have to check every several months.

1 comment:

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About Me

I was a PSD Board of Education member from 1999 to 2007, and spent nearly 3 years as its president, from 2003-2005. I currently represent Fort Collins' District 5 as its Councilmember. In my private life, I'm a lead engineer with nvidia, a computer chip design company. I have converted two cars from gasoline to electric. Past hobby computer projects include Hoverball and Adventure Definition Language.